


M210

by cicak



Series: Episode fics for Hannibal S2 [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bottom Hannibal, Deal with a Devil, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Possession, spoilers for 2x03 - Hassun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1347949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicak/pseuds/cicak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Hannibal is literally the devil, and Will doesn't know what he's got himself into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	M210

“This crime offered both of us reasonable doubt” Hannibal said, a thousand unspoken words hiding within his eyes. “I don’t want you to be here”.

“I don’t want me to be here either” Will replied, cautious about what he could say in such a place of violated privacy that hung as a threat, even in the private rooms.

“Then you have a choice”, Hannibal continued, “this killer wrote you a poem, are you going to let his love go to waste?”

 

And in the moment where Will Graham met Hannibal’s eyes, he knew two things - the terrible truth of Hannibal’s hidden history, and that he had just made a deal that would not go uncollected.

 

He hoped he would have enough time to learn the violin.

 

\---

 

It was only on the stand that the final piece of the puzzle slipped into place in Hannibal’s mind. The missing piece, the reason why the killer shot his victims this time, before mutilating them. He raised his head when the prosecution asked, and mentioned Garrett Jacob Hobbs, and even though it took the rest of the trial, a few weeks of paperwork, and some interminable waiting, that moment of clarity was the moment that unlocked the door of Will Graham’s cell, and let him walk, unblinking, into the sunlight. It was the moment when the whole sordid mess seemed worth it.

 

Will Graham, even to most of those who knew him, disappeared a week after his trial. His house lay empty. He collected his dogs from Alana Bloom, packed up his house, loaded up his car and disappeared. Tattle-Crime.com offered a handsome reward for any information about his whereabouts. Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom independently reached out to their web of connections to keep an eye out for any newly appointed lecturers in criminology in quiet, backwater universities who liked their privacy and long walks with a pack of dogs.

 

And that, as they say, was that.

 

\---

 

Baltimore continued to be everything it had always been, moderate crime rate, great restaurants, thriving arts scene filled with the unknowingly rude and unapologetically mentally disturbed. The Chesapeake Ripper stopped killing for so long that people stopped holding their breath when they said forever. Bella Crawford died peacefully in her sleep, leaving Jack Crawford a broken shell of a widower who threw himself into his work and Doctor Hannibal Lecter had a nervous breakdown and closed his practice abruptly, entering an intensive inpatient programme somewhere in New England. He told Alana Bloom over dinner about the mounting stress, about the final straw that broke the camel’s back, about the high level of burnout among those in their profession, looking haunted and vulnerable within his expensive armour of bespoke suit and air of glamour. Had she been more creative she would have described him as a shrunken thing in a beautiful cage. It was the look he was going for, after all. She smiled, and took his hand, and gave him a lingering hug goodbye. She promised she would write any letter he required, once he restarted his practice.

 

\---

 

And so the devil began to walk the earth to find the one who had accepted his love.

 

When the devil falls in love, the world quakes, the seas rise, and the world forms itself around the person who is so loved, to protect him. And so this instinctual protection of something so desired by evil, ironically makes it easier for the devil to find his prey. He need only walk into the hurricane until he meets the eye.

 

\---

 

When Hannibal Lecter appeared in the cabin by the lake that Will Graham was living the careful life in, the words died like ash on his tongue. For Will was beautiful in his freedom, and he looked browner and more divine than the devil in Hannibal could ever stomach. He looked like a perfect unspoiled picnic, before the attendance of the ants. He looked good enough to eat.

Against all the odds, Will smiled - _smiled_ \- when he saw Hannibal. He jogged forward. He curled a hand around his neck, warm from the sun. He said the words that all fearful people know not to say to a man with maroon eyes and closed his blue eyes in return.

 

Hannibal kissed him, and felt Will kiss him in return. Hannibal had always resolved to give himself to Will, to submit, to retrieve his love that was freely given. To recite the poem with his body as well as with his actions.

 

Will took him into his tiny house that Hannibal knew he had built with his own hands to be untraceable and incorruptible. He meticulously took Hannibal’s defenses down, removing his cage and then his armour, now so worn from walking the earth, but still retaining the essence of its fine glamour. He laid Hannibal on the coverlet, pressing the devil into a bed of cotton-printed flowers, and touched every piece of him. Reduced him to a mewling creature that begged with foreign and indescribable tongues to be touched and taken. Rearranged his limbs to give himself perfect access to the secrets of the body he wore as easily as his suits. Took oil made sanctified by honest work and pressed into Hannibal’s body and slid his fingers first into him, staking a claim before he withdrew and took him, both feet planted on the floor while the devil keened into a pillow. Will ran his fingers across the devil’s back and felt the nubs where wings had once sprouted when he was the morningstar, a scar always present in any incarnation, and heard him scream so loud it echoed off mountains and the minds of the pious. Pulled him up by the arms so they were supporting each other, and wrapped his workmans hands round his leaking, wanting. Became the first mortal in eternity to feel the devil come, and while he shook with immortal pleasure, took the fine cheekbones between his fingers, whispered a half-forgotten prayer, and wrenched with all his might, until all that was left of the devil was the corpse of Hannibal Lecter lying on a worn bedspread.

 

\----

 

The myth of the bargain with the devil usually ends either with a moral, or with a comedic twist, where the devil is outwitted.

Sometimes though, it ends with justice.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature's classification of the myth 'bargain with the devil'.
> 
> [cicaklah.tumblr.com](http://cicaklah.tumblr.com)


End file.
